


Nothing's gonna change my world

by Charles_Rockafellor



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Distant Past, Far Future, Kardeshёv Scale, Metaphysics, eschatology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24380977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/pseuds/Charles_Rockafellor
Summary: Discovering the wheel or fire probably led to a few accidents.  Inventing the pointy stick certainly led to some death over the millennia.  Right now, we have nuclear energy, and we're only at the upper end of K0 (close to K1).  A K2 civilization, in control of their star's entire energy throughput (assuming a similar advancement in their scientific understanding and technological applications), might make us look like cavemen.  A K3, at a galactic scale, is probably unimaginable realistically.  Each of these steps (and any higher degrees) stands the potential of falling, and each possible fall would presumably be increasingly unimaginable in its effects.This story is a glimpse behind the curtain, “before” the Icewall universe's timeline became jumbled by a K5 civilization's struggle over the psychomorphic effects of ZFC, time exploding and rearranging such that the very nature and physics of the universe became remade and replaced with something far stranger.𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Kudos: 3
Collections: Icewall, Singularity





	Nothing's gonna change my world

**Author's Note:**

> In the summary, I alluded to the fall of civilizations being increasingly devastating in their raw effects as the initial Kardashёv level increased. I imagine that while the drop from each to each might be increasingly large - Iron Age to Stone, 21c to post-nuke, etc. - the contrasts between them would be even more psychologically impactful (a greater fall for those unfamiliar with such circumstances), and the actual results still more far-reaching (an errant flame in a thatch hut is bad news, an errant missile worse; now imagine what ST:TNG Q might do [or more recent to pop cultural attention: the Infinity Gauntlet]).
> 
> As mentioned, this story doesn't look at such a fall, but that is what's to come “afterward”. It goes a long way toward explaining the principals' behavior as if strangers in a strange world, time but a pale reflection of what once was.  
>  Cf. Cauchy, in “[Out of time](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995391%22)”.
> 
> And for the search engine: “Kardashev”.

It was the end of time, it was the beginning of time.

At the height of the Akashic Empire, before The Ice no longer will have been caused to always have been, while yet still the ZFC's great-grandchild threatens the foundations of mathematics' implications to life and physics, life went on. “Empire” is so inaccurate a term for the whole, but no better term offered itself. What was needed immediately became. If some place were too small for some purpose, then that space became as large as needed without other effect; were two points too far apart for any need, then they were no longer so distant without crowding anything between them. What need for acquisition and rule in such a world as this?

Grand balls were held, and attendees arrived in whatever manner suited them – flashes of light that one could mistake as electronic avatars, holes in the fabric of space-time that made any two points identical and merged; these would be interpretations by our senses, albeit not physically accurate. Time mattered not, they would arrive whenever as locally appropriate for their arrival, while yet having proceeded whenever was convenient for them, be it long before or long after said arrival. Their bodies were as much a matter of appropriate projection of mental landscape as of interpretation by the viewer's own filters, with neither bearing more than accidental resemblance to anything that one might consider relevant to the physical context.  
They were the Beautiful Ones, the Bright ones; the Shining Ones. Intrigues occurred, but not in any manner that would seem so today. Academic insinuations veiled as postulates and conjectures.

This is the time of the Qhalqhal, a collective of beings whose mercurial piques and inquisitive nature would, were “species” then meaningful, see their mental architecture distilled as Elves in another time, another place.

**O ~~~ O**

**Author's Note:**

> Historically speaking, there was a not-exactly-war in the far future, time exploded (pretty literally), and times and places became greatly jumbled. The level of science, magic, and zooic technologies right before the “war” had reached heights undreamt of. That's when and where this story is set: “before” the restructuring of time, and long before [lit.] The Ice; possibly “before” the universe had become a flat and infinite plane. For a more detailed narrative on this history, see the Afterword “Seize the Deity” (in the .pdf on [my Google drive](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v)); for a glancing explanation of the shorter history of the universe's overall physical state, see Lady Daemon's explanations in “[I am Legion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24354049/chapters/58727857)” (as well, the “[Powers and Principalities](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29371374)” meta-article on AO3 gives a more detailed scaling of the power levels [and related stuff] for characters and their civilizations along the scale).
> 
> **Cf.:** “[EVA](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363373)”, “[Meat Pies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24362857/chapters/58754404)” (NB: ch. 3 note 3 re. Cor, w.r.t. the overall story's setting), and “[Megamechs 101](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24385531)” re. Kardashёv tech and post-level civilizations (esp. in light of the anime “Fairy Tail” and “One Piece”, or Gregory Benford's “Galactic Center” novel series), and esp. Cauchy in “[When in Rome” (ch. 1: Cauchy)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193691/chapters/66422087#workskin) / “[Out of time](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995391%22)”, following the events told of here.
> 
> The Qhalqhal referred to here didn't really have a name as such, so I borrowed _Qhal_ from C. J. Cherryh's “Morgaine Cycle” as a quick reference label (then doubled it as a plural collective plenum). This isn't meant to be a fanfic specifically of the Morgaine Cycle in the slightest (which is absolutely worthy of many, but not a job that I feel capable of), only fannish of the general nature of the Qhal were they to have advanced beyond even the levels that they had attained in canon, so the name is only a label, and one could as easily instead call them devils or angels, Q, Maiar, or anything similar.


End file.
